Formation/ Keeping customers happy - Event recap.

Engine Digital recently held the first of its Formation/ quarterly design and technology event series focused on what matters in the business of digital. Hosted at the agency's headquarters in Vancouver, attendees were part of an open discussion around retail and e-commerce and the changing face of customer engagement.

The event featured a panel of local leaders in retail and e-commerce including:

• Brendan Toupin, Director of eCommerce for Best Buy Canada

• Joe Granato, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC)

• Terra Cochrane, Head of Digital Operations at Lush Cosmetics

• Braden Hoeppner, SVP Marketing at Herschel Supply Company

• George Weetman, VP Brand & Digital Commerce for Arc'teryx

Ryan Opina, our VP Strategy, opened the event with a discussion around what is customer happiness, and how does one define happiness in a way that has a business impact across an organization.

Ryan offered three considerations for customer happiness:

• Negativity bias – things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on one's psychological state and processes than neutral or positive things.

• Benefit ratio – is the effort I am putting in worth what I am getting in return?

• Surprise – do I feel special and taken care of?

In closing, Opina pointed out that generating customer happiness should not be an objective of any single team or department — it's about all disciplines working together. As a result, the panel discussion featured guests from a variety of business functions to reflect the many facets of customer experience (CX).

Moderated by Dean Elissat, VP Growth at Engine Digital, the discussion weaved through how to define customer experience, how brands rate the success of CX initiatives, what it means to deliver elevated customer experiences, finding inspiration within organizations, and overcoming barriers that can keep organizations from becoming experience-driven companies.

Excerpts from the evening's conservation follow:

"We pay a lot of attention to balancing the brand promise versus the customer experience. I think there was a time when brands could get away with delivering a brand promise and underdelivering a customer experience. Due to transparency in the market and all kinds of good reasons, that's no longer the case."

– George Weetman, Arc'teryx

"The internal customer is often forgotten about in customer experience design. You can spend so much focus on what that customer looks like and having this amazing digital experience, but then they get there and the [employee] is struggling to use the software in front of [the customer]. I think it's as important to apply CX principles to the internal customer (employees) as the external customer."

– Terra Cochrane, Lush Cosmetics

"Data gives the team encouragement because it's one thing to go up to a store manager and say 'Hey look, here's 15 things you can do to provide a better experience' but there's also something about when you can say 'These are seven things you're doing that are awesome, so keep up those,' so it's not all doom and gloom every time the voice of the customer report comes out — there's actual motivation. Just like the bias of looking at where the opportunities are, don't forget where you're strong."

– Joe Granato, MEC

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